How many hours of video games is unhealthy?

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I enjoy video games. I'm more of a casual gamer who just plays whenever I feel like playing and makes room for exercising, coloring, writing and plenty of other things. I play for about two hours a day but I break up those two hours so they are not two hours straight. Is this unhealthy?

I prefer to do multiplayer with other people in the room so it's more social. For the most part, the majority of games I play aren't very popular and I only play what I know I'm good at and am familiar with.

In my opinion - generally zero. Tetris, solitaire, chess, early Pokémon, Mario Kart - fine. But there's not one game being widely played today that doesn't glorify violence, promiscuity, drugs, political extremism and intellectual vacuity. It would be immoral for anybody to play such games, IMO. Games like Grand Theft Auto should be banned by law, being responsible for countless acts of violence and a degradation in moral standards.

I don’t see any problem with 2 hours a day as long as it’s not keeping you from doing other things you need to do.

I tend to get obsessed with one game, play it a lot, and then play nothing for the next few months, but your approach is probably better. I have trouble switching gears to something else because it is such an obsessive interest of mine. (I’m obsessed with Zelda games).

I used to think I played a lot of video games until I came across play times in Steam which were in the 1000s of hours even for sh***y or just okay games that have only been out a couple years. I guess the amount I play is peanuts in comparison.

Video game violence is not responsible for real world violence. Countless studies have proven this.

One can find studies that "prove" anything one wants. I only trust natural scientists, not social scientists, who haven't the means of obtaining trustworthy knowledge and are also significantly more likely to have a vested agenda. It would only take a Google search for me to find "scientific" studies "proving" a link between a link between video games and violence, but I won't do it because I have more respect for you than that.

Common sense dictates that viewing acts.of violence for several hours a day is liable, under some circumstances, to create an appetite for the same. This is aside from the countless cases of violent criminals who openly admit to having been influenced by video games.

Please think about this objectively; if violent video games cause violence, it would be wrong of you to ignore it just because you enjoy playing them, however nonviolent you are yourself.

I'm so glad we have the prevailing opinion of common sense to guide us, in place of reproducible scientific study and academic rigor.

Personally I don't think a simplistic heuristic such as "time spent" helps anyone come to a rational conclusion, although it can help individuals set "Smart" objectives should they wish to balance or otherwise limit the time spent on such activities. You play mostly multiplayer... do you play with a regular group or randoms? If it's the former, do you play more often than other gaming friends?

It's very hard to get clear scientific information about videogaming, as there aren't enough quualified people studying it and too many people in the sector with agendas, from the publishers entrapping children with gambling mechanics to old fools regurgitating the same fallacies used to demonise rock music half a century ago.

Do you think you are spending too much time on videogames? Are any of your responsibilities, friendships or other interests suffering because you are playing instead? Do you find yourself changing previously agreed plans just to spend more time gaming? In my mind, if my answer is "yes" to any of these then I need to pay close attention to my addictive tendancies, and perhaps set myself a goal to reduce my gaming time for a while. Another thing I do is to use gaming as a reward for "chores" such as housework, leaving the house, having a two-way conversation (doesn't happen often) and other things NTs take for granted.

I'm a gaming addict so to me any time 10 hours and under (per day) is perfectly acceptable lol

It seems to me like it's less a specific number of hours that becomes unhealthy, and more of how much one's gaming is affecting the rest of one's life. If it's interfering with things like work, school, social life and relationships with others, personal care, or performing basic household tasks, that's when it's become an unhealthy addiction. That amount may be different for different people, or even for the same person at different times.

It's only becomes unhealthy if it gets in the way of your functioning and causes you to neglect your duties and your kids and you are calling in sick or if you can't do your work because you are too tired from staying up late playing and you are always anxious to get back to your game.

There are people out there who do make a living off of playing video games because they stream live with it and people tip them. But that isn't guaranteed a living and my son told me he wanted to be a gamer when he grew up. I had to tell him the bad news that the chances of making a living of playing video games are very slim. That is just a gig and you need another job. Most actors have another job and so do artists and musicians and writers, any gig out there.

As Dr. Phil says, normal is a behavior that doesn't interfere with your life.

So if you are playing hours of video games but it's not interfering with your life, then it isn't unhealthy what you are doing. It's unhealthy for a child because of their brain development but it's fine for teens and adults because our brains are far developed.

Playing video games for a as long as I want or whenever I want doesn't interfere with my life because I have no life.

As long as it doesn't cripple your health or your economy, not amount of gaming is unhealthy. It's a way to meet friends, it brings people together and it's extremely relaxing.

What i wonder about is why someone who doesn't have an appetite for violence would be intrigued by violent media in the first place. That is the reason i don't believe violent video games cause people to act violently but rather the other way around.

People may like violence in video games because it's not real life and it's a way to blow off steam. There are no consequences what you do in the games.

Blaming real life violence in video games is like blaming violence in movies. Most people are not emotionally attached to game characters so they can kill them without a problem because they are just computer graphics and have no feelings. But in real life they wouldn't do that not because they don't want to go to jail but because they have empathy and a conscious. Sociopaths on the other hand don't feel that way so to them we are just objects that move. They have no concept of empathy. They cannot imagine what harm they would cause. They do not have the ability to feel bad after being told what harm they have caused. How they feel about real people is how we feel about game characters so we have no problems killing them. Video games do no cause violence. Violence has been around for ages and ages and for centuries.

I can understand why those who enjoy playing violent video games would take solace in the above view, sold to them by the relevant greed lobby, but I don't see how any honest person can take it seriously. There are plenty of documented cases of violent criminals acknowledging that video games and films played a role in their actions, and the skyrocketing of violent crime that followed the relaxing of the restrictions on violence in media in the from the 60s onwards is also telling. I don't see why other people can't see it. Media and culture influence people, and this has been recognised since the beginning of civilisation. Those who are in denial about this are incredibly gadarene, which would be fine if they were only harming themselves, but they're harming others, too.